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It stands as the most memorable appearance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays completely still.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk the line of detention units arriving at the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, chillingly static clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he propels himself against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, far from Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was forged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, as well as his strictly demanding acting coach his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a sore point for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and drinking.

The title originates from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a pastry chef and man's man, a direct communicator who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who was angered by the necessity of going begging to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time scholarships existed to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived through midlife to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He mentions having lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Is that so?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply